


A Certain Kind Of Sadness

by waltzmatildah



Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-31
Updated: 2011-07-31
Packaged: 2017-10-22 00:45:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/231784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waltzmatildah/pseuds/waltzmatildah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Takes off where <i>Thirty-Eight Snub</i> left us...</p><p><i>He lets the thunderous thump and thud of the bass become his new heart beat. A living, breathing rhythm that he thinks he could probably exist along to.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	A Certain Kind Of Sadness

He lets the thunderous thump and thud of the bass become his new heart beat. A living, breathing rhythm that he thinks he could probably exist along to.

Knows he can no longer survive on the beat of his own after all. Stuttered and stammering as it is...

 

*

 

There are ghosts hanging from the dusty drapes. Clinging, cobweb-like, to cornices and door frames and the inside of his refrigerator when he swings open the door in search of cold air and clarity.

They whisper greetings that melt against him, weigh him down so low that the pile of the carpet leaves its pattern indelibly inked against his forehead.

Invariably, their messages echo an identical beat.

 _Your fault..._

 _You're next..._

He'd scream if he had enough air in his lungs to conjure sound.

 

*

 

The motions of the cook are second nature by now. Lift, pour, wait, watch. He slides his gaze sideways and south. Catches Mr. White unawares.

Blinks.

Gets a blink back in return.

It's been three days since they've bothered with the mundane act of speaking to one another.

Conversation seems as futile as fight these days and so they pack their product and load the vans and strip the evidence from their bodies before slipping behind steering wheels that serve to deliver them in opposite directions.

 

*

 

Some days he almost misses the oppressive heat of the baked RV. The open expanse of desert that always threatened to swallow them whole.

The sunny illusion of control.

 

*

 

He buys new clothes. Jeans that fit a little tighter and jackets that stop well before his knees. Looks in the mirror and doesn't recognise himself.

Almost prefers it that way.

Runs his finger down the watermarked glass and splits his own reflection with a smudge. Before and after and after that.

 

*

 

He spends the nights smoking cigarettes. Lets them burn to stubs that smolder against his fingertips before lighting the next off the embers of the last.

Blows smoke rings into the air above his head and tries not to think of Jane.

Fails every time.

 _I'm so sorry..._ And other muttered utterances that mean nothing.

 

*

 

He keeps his cut of the cash in a series of storage boxes that he lines up, sentry-like, in the attic. More money than he thinks he could ever hope to spend.

Makes anonymous donations to animal welfare shelters and cancer research organisations, slips fifty dollar bills into tins that shake with the sound of rattling coins. Walks around for days with a thank you sticker pressed to his chest.

Proof of his continued existence.

 _I donated to the American Stroke Foundation!_

 

*

 

Winter rolls around. He puffs cumulonimbus clouds as he pounds the pavement. Runs without looking over his shoulder.

At least, tries to...

Runs without looking forward.

Knows there to be no point. His foreseeable future was mapped out, dots and lines and stops and starts, long before now.

Any alternatives he can conjure end with buzzards picking at his sun-bleached bones.

And it's nothing more than he deserves after all.


End file.
